The success of New Who: Debunking a myth

So many people go on about how you can't question RTD's formula because it was a success, "A BRILLIANT, BRILLIANT SUCCEEEEEEEESSSSS". Even if you don't like it, you have to accept that was the best way to bring DW back.

Well personally I'm going to say that overall no it wasn't. It WAS successful at first, but in the long run New Who has actually been a disaster.

The RTD era was hugely popular for two reasons.

1/ Nostalgia: RTD and the rest of the Fitzroy try and paint it as DW was a dead brand in the 90s until they came along. Not true at all. DW had been hugely popular on video and DVD, and in 2002 the show was voted in a nationwide poll the series people would most like to see return (above Blackadder!)

Its worth noting as well that until Voyage of the Damned, Rose was the highest rated episode of the revival. Even today its among the top 5 of the RTD era.

2/ It cashed in on the then popular young adult, fantasy romance genre. Buffy and Angel, Xena and Gabrielle had come and gone by then, and Twilight was just around the corner. New Who that fell slap in the middle benefited from that craze, but in the long run it wasn't a good formula.

It pigeon holed the Doctor into too strict a role. Whilst its true that the original Doctor had a template to his character, it was one that you could fit into different situations, spy espionage, base under siege, horror etc. The New Who Doctor however to modern audiences became strictly a young, romantic, relatable figure.

If they tried to make him anything else as seen with both Matt and Capaldi in their first years then it would be too jarring for new viewers, hence why they both ended up as Tennant clones lusting after Jenna in their second year.

As a result of this and the shows lack of continuity, its viewers fell every year between Tennant's last and Jodie's first.

As much as I love Matt if you look you can see that viewers fall during his three seasons, to pretty low overnights until they are given a brief boost for the 50th. They then continue to crash every year to barely above 2 million for Capaldi's last series.

Whilst Jodie gave them a brief spurt for her first few episodes out of the novelty and hype, they ultimately sunk yet again to record lows in some cases like Resolution.

When you look at Classic Who its the reverse, its viewers between season 6 and 12 go up every year. This is before we get into all the hiatus (which classic who only had once in the C Baker era.) And the fact that it's reputation is now worse than it ever was before.

IMO New Who won't last another 2 years. So with this in mind New Who will be lucky to last half as long as Classic Who. Its gone through 6 Doctors (7 if you include Handy) and changed the characters sex too, yet it barely managed to scrape enough interest for 12 seasons. Classic Who was about to peak aftet that time!

Also in the UK Classic Who outsells New Who on DVD every year too, by a considerable amount. Abroad meanwhile Tom Baker still remains the most iconic Doctor.

This just goes to show why the Classic era formula is the best. I think had they brought it back that way, with improved effects of course in the 00s, whilst it might not have been the sensation Tennant was for 2 or 3 years, it would have been in a much better place and more sure of itself for the next ten years, with a more stable fanbase.

It was a short term success, at the expense of any kind of long term future. Turning it into something ultimately unsustainable.

I think RTD's era was a popular success simply because we'd been starved of anything adventurous on British TV for years, and saturated with Reality TV shite instead. It's a no brainer Doctor Who was going to win them over.

To be honest, the big hits of RTD's era were the Daleks, Weeping Angels and the Empty Child, all creations by other writers, and I guess to a lesser extent David Tennant's pin up appeal.

So I still pretty much feel that New Who was a success in spite of, rather than because of RTD.

I don't know why the audience began to dip during Series 5. It might simply be that Tennant had become so much the face of the show that anyone else just didn't look like the real deal anymore. But to be honest it's just as possible that End of Time's indulgences broke the show's back.

With Series 6 however I do sympathize utterly with the drop-off. There were colossal misjudgments that season that were likely to make most viewers feel bewildered, alienated or kicked in the teeth.

With Series 9 I think the drop-off could've been down to either the Missy revelation being the most obnoxious "gotcha" moment Moffat ever pulled, or MrTardis was right that it was that bloody stupid, drawn-out Capaldi on a Tank scene.

Speaking of which, I had a funny discussion about that with someone on youtube who insisted the scene was great and couldn't understand fans' problem with it.

Jesus Fucking Christ. NuWho really is a show made by and for idiots.

Indeed.

I've always tried to be charitable by emphasising that I don't think the show's new audience of fans are stupid, but I *do* think the makers think they're stupid.

But yeah, some of them undoubtedly are.

Tanman wrote:I think RTD's era was a popular success simply because we'd been starved of anything adventurous on British TV for years, and saturated with Reality TV shite instead. It's a no brainer Doctor Who was going to win them over.

Exactly. It annoys me when people like Jon Blum (sorry to bring him up, but he is kind of the epitome of the self loathing fanboy) try to say that New Who was more successful than the old because Tennant was more successful than Hartnell.

You can't compare them that way. Hartnell was when the show was brand new. It didn't have 50 years of history behind it. It was just another show then.

The new one should by definition always be more successful (is Batman more of a success in 1947 than he was in 2017 for instance?)

Still even then New Who I feel managed to fuck things up, not just from a creative point of view, but a mainstream one. Like I said by this stage Classic Who had ran continually, gone through fewer leading actors, and hadn't  resorted to cheap publicity stunts, or had anywhere near the hype, yet it was in a healthier form.

New Who should be more successful in every way because of its history, yet its floundering. Its not even appealing to modern viewers more, hence why Classic Who smashes it on DVD and Blue Ray every year (Its not like you can say, OH only older people buy DVDs and Blue Ray. The rest of the top 10 are made up of modern shows like Game of Thrones.)

There has to be some reflection from the BBC when the show finishes again that actually from the start the formula for New Who was wrong.

I think that a key contributing factor to New Who’s initial success, especially during the Davies era, was how the programme seemed intent on appearing relevant and cool during the zeitgeist it originated from. This is particularly evident in how the Davies era made itself appear popularist through frequently casting celebrity guest stars and referencing key points of 2000s televisual iconography (The Weakest Link, Trinny and Susannah, Eastenders etc), and this template has persisted throughout New Who. It enables for temporary success given the time period, but ensures that the series will date horrendously rather quickly, as is the case with the Davies, Moffat and Chibnall eras. Burrunjor, you make an excellent point concerning New Who’s lack of longevity in its formula compared to Classic Who, hence its decline in popularity after a mere 14 years as opposed to 23 (in the case of the 1985-6 hiatus).

The Classic Series, though superficially dated to some, retains a sense of narrative timelessness due to not indulging in the popcultural zeitgeist of the period it was made in. The closest it came to this was JNT’s era post 1985 (when Michael Grade got involved), though even seasons 23 and 24 aren’t as infatuated with pop culture as the last 14 years of New Who. Chibnall’s era has taken this to a new nadir, granted, especially with the truly shite ‘Arachnids in the UK’, where Trump and Ed Sheeran are referenced to the point of pure redundancy and becomes purely detrimental, though there are so many things wrong with that story and series 11 anyway that this seems like a mere by product on the whole. Essentially, New Who’s anti-intellectual stance had granted the Tennant era a brief surge of popularity, though did not truly last beyond that, as you correctly acknowledge.

Sorry for the rambling post- I’ve just joined the forum, and did so due to being rather frustrated with seeing a series I once loved become so tarnished in modern society. My passion for the classic series had surprisingly increased after series 11 due to how shockingly bad it was, and I have since re-evaluated New Who as a whole upon analysing the state of it. I became a fan after Smith’s first series at a rather young age (which I still hold in fairly high regard, unlike essentially every other New Who season), so I can thank New Who for that, though most of it comes across as decidedly smug and moronic to me now.

Bernard Marx wrote:Sorry for the rambling post

It's alright.

Welcome to the forum

Thank you!

Something else I noticed concerning the sycophancy of the Davies era and New Who in general. On the documentary ‘Come in Number Five’ as found on the Resurrection Of The Daleks special edition DVD, Davison, Bidmead, Saward and Fielding allude to JNT as being ‘popularist’ in that he cast celebrity guest starts when they weren’t necessarily right for the part (in an overt form of criticism) only to subsequently refer to RTD as a ‘genius’ in spite of doing the same thing and much more avidly. Why is this? Do they genuinely believe that his writing is less popularist that JNT’s era? For all it’s flaws, JNT’s era was considerably less popularist: Warriors’ Gate was inspired by the films of Jean Cocteau (specifically ‘La Belle Et La Beté’ and ‘Orpheé’), Vengeance on Varos satarised the moronic and inhuman mechanisms of reality TV without covertly glorifying them as RTD did, and Revelation Of The Daleks was inspired by Evelyn Waugh’s satirical novel ‘The Loved One’. I can’t think of New Who borrowing from such literary sources at any point (unless my memory is bad), so how is RTD a ‘genius’ according to their logic? This seems like evidence to further indicate that New Who’s popularity is powered purely by rhetoric and platitudes rather than valid praise and criticism, hence its lack of longevity.

Bernard Marx wrote:On the documentary ‘Come in Number Five’ as found on the Resurrection Of The Daleks special edition DVD, Davison, Bidmead, Saward and Fielding allude to JNT as being ‘popularist’ in that he cast celebrity guest starts when they weren’t necessarily right for the part (in an overt form of criticism) only to subsequently refer to RTD as a ‘genius’ in spite of doing the same thing and much more avidly. Why is this? Do they genuinely believe that his writing is less popularist that JNT’s era?

Yeah, there's definitely a double standard going on there (and I say that as someone who isn't a fan of JNT's Who).

Maybe the only real difference is that everyone (barring Eccleston) was on the same page with RTD's populist approach, whereas it wasn't so much the case with JNT's team, given how notoriously he and Saward were at loggerheads, and the confusion of their approach showed.

I kind of get the sense that the Davison cast and crew are of a generation that half-remembers what made the old show so effective in its day when it wasn't shaped to the tastes and sensibilities of the 21st Century BBC (and presumably they feel that JNT's era lost that)..... but because they're now part of that BBC culture of being a self-congratulatory happiness cult workplace, I guess those are the values by which they praise RTD's revival for being the pinnacle of that and bringing that culture to Doctor Who.

Generally it seems to be human nature that people gathered together will become in synch with the same attitudes, especially in an environment as bourgeois as the BBC, but if asked to think back, will more likely remember stuff they felt personally divided over.

Yeah- the Davison lot do come across as considerably cynical when discussing their era, perhaps for the reasons you mention. You have a point concerning the BBC and its elitist and bourgeoisie persona- it’s definitely more complacent in nature in terms of its creativity now. I’ll admit that JNT’s era is the least consistently structured of the original run, but I’ll take its overall output over the vast majority of New Who, personally. There’s an earnestness to large proportions of it which New Who never seems to have- as crap as certain stories from JNT’s era are, it does have a stronger artistic integrity than New Who at the best of times (stories like Caves Of Androzani, Revelation, Remembrance, Fenric and Survival kick the shit out of basically all of New Who’s output, and I have a soft spot for Warriors’ Gate). It is interesting to consider that the cast and crew of JNT’s era were calling him out for such popularism whilst the RTD, Moffat and Chibnall production teams were not- I think that highlights why New Who is often vacuous in terms of creativity. The production team seems to indulge in pissing about rather than attempting to create challenging content, as evidenced by the media hyperbole that has surrounded New Who since the beginning.

Your point about the production team of the Davison era being half-aware of the integrity of previous eras might be correct. Davison mentions in the same documentary that the 60s and 70s eras were laced with ‘atmosphere’, contrary to his own era. I think the presence of complacent directors during Davison and Colin’s era certainly enhanced said lack of ‘atmosphere’ during his time, so I understand where he’s coming from there. Peter Moffat and Ron Jones weren’t the best Who directors by any means- though Fiona Cumming and Graeme Harper (especially the latter) were noteworthy.

Back to the thread at hand- New Who has thrived on popularism since its inception, but based on how this success has only proven to be short term, how often can they keep the series going for? I don’t see it continuing beyond series 12, honestly- less than half of how many seasons Classic Who had- as the ratings dip (already apparent with ‘Resolution’, which gained lacklustre overnight ratings of merely 5.15 million, only 0.15 million more than ‘Survival: Part 3) will become properly pronounced by that stage, as was also the case with series 9.

I would certainly concur that Classic Who got where it did by trial and error, whilst New Who only got where it did by playing as safe as possible, and having the disdainful view that the viewing public couldn't possibly handle anything else so lets not even try.

I think that is partly why the well of creativity has been drying up, but it's also because, again, now the worst talents involved are the only ones left free to run the show whilst what better talents New Who once had have now all moved onto greener pastures.

It might be that the BBC never really thought about continuing the new show beyond RTD, and expected to just end it on End of Time. Moffat seemed maybe worth giving a go as showrunner, but his era ended up failing to produce its own candidate for successor. There's even a suggestion I read somewhere that Series 7 was largely about test running certain writers for the role.

If Chibnall was the only one left free to run the show anymore, it was clear it was in trouble from right then.

Bernard Marx wrote:I think that a key contributing factor to New Who’s initial success, especially during the Davies era, was how the programme seemed intent on appearing relevant and cool during the zeitgeist it originated from. This is particularly evident in how the Davies era made itself appear popularist through frequently casting celebrity guest stars and referencing key points of 2000s televisual iconography (The Weakest Link, Trinny and Susannah, Eastenders etc), and this template has persisted throughout New Who. It enables for temporary success given the time period, but ensures that the series will date horrendously rather quickly, as is the case with the Davies, Moffat and Chibnall eras. Burrunjor, you make an excellent point concerning New Who’s lack of longevity in its formula compared to Classic Who, hence its decline in popularity after a mere 14 years as opposed to 23 (in the case of the 1985-6 hiatus).

The Classic Series, though superficially dated to some, retains a sense of narrative timelessness due to not indulging in the popcultural zeitgeist of the period it was made in. The closest it came to this was JNT’s era post 1985 (when Michael Grade got involved), though even seasons 23 and 24 aren’t as infatuated with pop culture as the last 14 years of New Who. Chibnall’s era has taken this to a new nadir, granted, especially with the truly shite ‘Arachnids in the UK’, where Trump and Ed Sheeran are referenced to the point of pure redundancy and becomes purely detrimental, though there are so many things wrong with that story and series 11 anyway that this seems like a mere by product on the whole. Essentially, New Who’s anti-intellectual stance had granted the Tennant era a brief surge of popularity, though did not truly last beyond that, as you correctly acknowledge.

Sorry for the rambling post- I’ve just joined the forum, and did so due to being rather frustrated with seeing a series I once loved become so tarnished in modern society. My passion for the classic series had surprisingly increased after series 11 due to how shockingly bad it was, and I have since re-evaluated New Who as a whole upon analysing the state of it. I became a fan after Smith’s first series at a rather young age (which I still hold in fairly high regard, unlike essentially every other New Who season), so I can thank New Who for that, though most of it comes across as decidedly smug and moronic to me now.

Welcome to the hive.

I agree that pop culture references in DW often come over as desperate and trying to win round the young crowd. Its like the I like the Playstation bit from Still Game.

Having said that references don't always have to be as bad as New Who did them. For instance The Chase had the Beatles appear, but the Beatles are at least something that people will know about in 10, 20, 50, even 100 years.

RTD had fucking Trinny and Suzannah. Who even remembers them now?

Series 5 of New Who is unquestionably the best series of the revival. Its what a 21st century version of DW should have looked like, and probably the only one that's even remotely popular around these parts. Matt is the best New Who Doctor, whilst Karen Gillan is one of the best companions.

It doesn't talk down to its audience and it has a good mix of stories, from horror stories like the Angels one, to comedies like the Lodger, to moving poignant episodes like Vincent and the Doctor.

As Clockwork Ocean has pointed out however, Moffat sadly just proved to be too weak to be showrunner. As soon as any pressure was put on him by the RTD fans and the SJWs, he caved to them and destroyed the show.

Though I actually think S7 was better than people here and elsewhere give it credit for, the cracks definitely were starting to appear there, and by series 8 Moffat did more to fuck up his legacy than George Lucas.

I agree with much of this. Yes, the Chase featured the Beatles for about 1 minute, though RTD’s emphasis on Trinny and Susannah is not only far more prevalent but also dated. Series 5 is great, I agree, and I have a soft spot for the Smith era as a whole (in spite of its fuck ups), but Moffat’s era is, in large part, an embarrassment and indictment of what made the original series so endearing. Series 8 is one I recall really disliking at the time, mainly due to Death In Heaven, and series 9 and 10 were rather rubbish as well (Heaven Sent and WEAT aside), though comparing Moffat to George Lucas is a little harsh on Lucas. I’d say he reminds me more of Rian Johnson, creatively and as a person. Smug, self-loathing and inherently feeble as a storyteller when put under pressure.

Though, in spite of his inherently disappointing and frankly diabolical impact on the programme, I prefer him to Chibnall, as he at least had some semblance of original ideas when not coerced by the RTD fans. Chibnall seems to encapsulate the most vacuous and unchallenging elements of New Who with no redeeming qualities as a writer whatsoever.

I too am very fond of the Smith era (it's certainly by far my favourite of New Who and the only one I regard with anything like the same kind of affection as the original series), though it did start to go downhill, and the Capaldi era was a letdown of such catastrophic levels it's difficult to get your head around. How did the guy who wrote Time of Angels spew out The Magician's Apprentice (and other atrocities)? And, like Burrunjour, I see series 5 as the point where New Who came this close to being what a modern version of Doctor Who should have been... only to slowly, surely and ultimately completely throw it all away again.

I agree with much of this. Yes, the Chase featured the Beatles for about 1 minute, though RTD’s emphasis on Trinny and Susannah is not only far more prevalent but also dated.

The thing about The Beatles in The Chase is that it wasn't just a crude insert of a pop reference, it was a genuine pleasant surprise in the story. And more importantly for Ian and Barbara, it was a poignant reminder of home. It meant something because seeing any sight of modern Earth was such a rare occurrence for Ian and Barbara.

It also provided an interesting clash of perspectives with how future girl Vicki remembers the Beatles.

RTD's pop references were just pointless and gratuitous, and a little bit desperate.

Bad Wolf is probably if not the worst offender, then emblematic of the problem, because ultimately the Weakest Link/Big Brother with a death sentence for losing ends up not making sense. Why would the Big Brother housemates act like normal contenders if they grew up under martial law and knew each day in the house could be their last?

How does Rose ever overcome the dilemma of knowing her vote against another contestant at the end of each round, could make the difference between that contestant living or dying..... oh we're never shown, we skip over that bit because the story can't tackle it.

That kind of thinking should've made clear that the official gameshows and the story scenario don't fit together because those shows have their own rules that the story can't be faithful to, but they were included anyway just for purely pandering purposes.

Hello, iank. I completely agree with your take on the Moffat era. The Smith years certainly declined over time, and the Capaldi era is largely fucking awful with the odd exception. I don’t think episodes such as Death in Heaven, Hell Bent and Twice Upon a Time can be surpassed in terms of sheer offensiveness, but the fact that Moffat went from series 5 (and the Time Of Angels two parter, as you say; which I also love) to such appalling lows is baffling indeed. It’s difficult to believe it’s the same writer, hence why I tend to separate early Moffat from mid to late Moffat. Having said that, I think I dislike Moffat and Davies equally. The Davies era comes across as patronising in how it treats the intelligence of its audience for the vast majority of it, whilst the Moffat era would initially refrain from such things but eventually thrive in undermining the legacy and lore of the original programme in much more offensive ways.

Tanmann, I re-watched Bad Wolf fairly recently and agree with your sentiments completely. There’s a sense throughout the whole thing that Davies is simply glorifying reallty TV as opposed to satirising it, and this is plainly obvious due to how the contestants respond to the society they live in. The reference in the Chase always came across as more genuine and less shoehorned, not least because of Vicki’s naturalistic reaction to them, and how it reinforces Ian and Barbara’s ever-present bond between one another before their departure by the story’s conclusion. The Bad Wolf two parter itself annoys me now more than it used to- I used to quite like it, though now find most of it as equally patronising as the rest of the Davies era (especially with the mawkish ending and Deus-Ex-Machina, which is plainly crap), though I’d say that series 2 is more offensively awful than series 1 due to stretching the worst points of the era to such unbearable limits.

It still surprises me (as it did at the time) how they took all the elements I thought were the worst parts of series 1 - and assumed were teething problems that would be ironed out next season - and made them almost the entirety of series 2!

Series 2 is just fucking awful. I re-watched Doomsday recently, and was surprised at how crap the direction was and how patronisingly mawkish it all was. I couldn’t believe Graeme Harper directed it- the scene where the Daleks and Cybermen meet is shot and edited in the most uninspired and soapish possible way, as is the crap battle between both foes featuring appalling CG. And the final scene is so over-sentimental that it’s frankly laughable (and sadly became the template for the remainder of the era going forward). Why the story is so acclaimed by many media outlets is completely beyond me.

Bernard Marx wrote:I agree with much of this. Yes, the Chase featured the Beatles for about 1 minute, though RTD’s emphasis on Trinny and Susannah is not only far more prevalent but also dated. Series 5 is great, I agree, and I have a soft spot for the Smith era as a whole (in spite of its fuck ups), but Moffat’s era is, in large part, an embarrassment and indictment of what made the original series so endearing. Series 8 is one I recall really disliking at the time, mainly due to Death In Heaven, and series 9 and 10 were rather rubbish as well (Heaven Sent and WEAT aside), though comparing Moffat to George Lucas is a little harsh on Lucas. I’d say he reminds me more of Rian Johnson, creatively and as a person. Smug, self-loathing and inherently feeble as a storyteller when put under pressure.

I suspect you and I are going to get along fine as we seem to agree on most things LOL. We need more people who agree with me here. That's an indicment of great intelligence right away.

Yes you're right that it is a little harsh on Lucas, as Lucas only ever fucked up his own work through pointless remasters, whilst Moffat vandalised other peoples.

What he did to the Master alone is utterly unforgivable, the fact he also managed to destroy the Brig, regeneration, the Daleks, the first Doctor, and Sherlock Holmes all at the same time is unbelievable.

One can only hudder at what he will do to Dracula. PS one thing I don't understand is why does he keep adapting male characters. If he is this big feminist who is desperate to show how progressive he is, why not create or adapt a female character?

Why go around emasculating, or replacing male characters like the Doctor and Sherlock Holmes? Its pathetic.

That’s a stance I certainly hold. If one is going to be progressive, just outline your own progressive creations- it indicates a sense of creative integrity as opposed to a lack of talent, and talent and initiative are required for true progress, surely? I had a discussion with someone the other day, who assumed that Rey from The Last Jedi and Whittaker’s Doctor at least represented a desire of progress even if they failed, but I disagree. Rey is purely a black slate, suggestive that women are vacuous beneath the surface , and Whittaker’s Doctor lacks any depth and is a mere caricature of the original character. Surely this is an indictment of the very demographic you are trying to please? I guess nuance and context aren’t concepts to these people...

iank wrote:It still surprises me (as it did at the time) how they took all the elements I thought were the worst parts of series 1 - and assumed were teething problems that would be ironed out next season - and made them almost the entirety of series 2!

The Doctor/Rose schmoopy couple stuff was unbearable. The Ghostbusters bit is one of the cringiest scenes in the show.

Having said that though I'd still take the Tennant/Rose romance over Capaldi/Missy. At least he didn't compare killing Nyssa's parents, Teegan's aunt, Osgood, and a quarter of the universe to eating a bacon sandwhich to justify that romance.

(Though he might have been able to justify killing Teegan's aunt by saying. "She was like her neice.")

That goes without saying.

Though the Tennant/Rose relationship is moronic regardless.

What’s embarrassing is that I am part of the RTD generation, and most my age hail that era as the best ever, resulting in me having to roll my eyes whenever such things are brought up.